1. Megan Robinson
How Do We Analyse Film?
Introduction:
There are two main types of analysis when studying film; these are genre analysis and
auteur theory. Genre analysis is when you know what type of film you are going to watch
and don’t have to think about it too much because it uses typical genrecodes and
conventions. A good example would be ‘Quantum of Solace’ directed by Marc Forster in
2008, this film uses typical codes and conventions of the action genre. Auteur Theory can be
applied to any filmmaker who has unusual ideas and challenges genre conventions by doing
something different. An example of a film an analyst could apply auteur theory to is‘Leon’
directed by Luc Besson in 1994. An example of a war movie that conforms to genre
conventions is ‘The Green Berets’ directed by Kellogg and Wayne in 1968 and it also starred
John Wayne. Another war movie would be ‘Apocalypse Now’ directed by Francis Ford
Coppola in 1979, this was an example of a very unconventional film because of the way the
characters are portrayed; and there is a hard hitting anti-war ideological message because
there is a scene where it cross cuts from the helicopters about to attack to a village where
there are innocent people and schools.This makes the director’s work be classed as that
from auteur theory.
Main Part One
There are seven different areas of genre analysis which are:
Codes and Conventions - Codes aresomething that show the meaning and
conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. An example of a
film that follows the conventions of the genre is ‘Quantum of Solace’ directed by
Marc Forster in 2008 which is an action/ spy thriller. This follows conventions because
you know that James Bond will succeed and they use props such as nice sport/nice
cars and good quality guns,good vs. evil, etc… The setting is quite rich with nicer
buildings, exotic locations, etc… This is typical of the action/spy thriller.
Setting is where the film is set, this can be a variety of different
places and can include aspects such as different times of day, a
range of weather types, and buildings depending on the
location. An example of this is ‘Mean Girls’ directed by Mark
Waters in 2004, the setting you see in the mise en scene is
mostly at high school such as dining room, classroom, sports
hall, etc… They also include parents’ house and shopping mall. This is what you expect
in teen comedy genre but most teen comedies start with a
house party however ‘Mean Girls’ doesn’t therefore breaks
conformity in this instance.

2. Characters in film allow the audience to engage and relate to events in the
narrative. Most films have characters who are protagonists and
antagonists.A protagonist is when someone is a hero and classed as a
good guy. An antagonist is when someone is an enemy and seen as a
bad guy. In‘The Green Berets’ directed by Kellogg and Wayne in 1968, you see the main
characters in the mise en scene go to fight in the war to save innocent people such as
women and children in the Vietnam War, American soldiers come
across as heroes and won the war. However in the film called
‘Apocalypse Now’ directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1979, there is a
scene where you see in the mise en scene a group of helicopters and a
village of people, a technical feature used is editing because
they cross cut at a fast pace and you realise that two things
are happening at the same time. The characters all look
similar to the ones in ‘The Green Berets’ however it is
apparent that the characters in ‘Apocalypse Now’ breaks
conventions because it shows they are not bothered about
the innocent people such as school children and women. In ‘Quantum of
Solacee’ directed by Marc Forster in 2008, you know about the main
character James Bond is a protagonist, good looking, wearing a smart suit, looks like a
spy, work on his own, etc… Another example of a character is Mr White who is an
antagonist, weak and ineffective without his helpers. This is stereotypical of the
spy/thriller genre.
Themescan cover different parts of life such as love, friendship and revenge. These
will be different depending on the genre of the film. An example would be ‘REC’
directed by Jaume Balaguero in 2007, there are a number of themes which are
death, contagion, demonic possession, entrapment and survival. Demonic possession
occurs for majority of the film because at approximately 15 minutes there is an inciting
incident when a woman bites a Policeman, this continues
to come out because of other characters becoming
zombies and spreading the disease. This leads to
entrapment because they are locked in by the health
authorities. Therefore they cannot escape the apartment block
and will eventually become possessed. REC breaks conventions
slightly in the beginningby having the mise en scene like a
reality TV show but then completely changes.
Narrative is the story of the film; it has a beginning, middle and end, this is classed as a
linear narrative. A non-linear narrative is one that does the opposite to this. Anexample of a
linear narrative is from the film ‘Mean Girls’ directed by Mark Waters in 2004, the
exposition is very representative of the teen movie genre because the setting is in high
school, the characters have popular groups such as The Plastics, jocks, cool Asiansand not
very popular groups such as geeks, Asian nerds and art
freaks. The inciting incident is when a new girl called Cady

3. has been asked to join The Plastics in the canteen, Cady’s art freak friends thought a plan to
destroy The Plastics by using Cady as undercover. The rising action is when
Cady starts to change by becoming a Plastic. This isn’t expected because she
is not used to that lifestyle and you can see it is changing, firstly she is
starting to get revenge on ‘The Plastics’ but she soon becomes one of them.
The climax is when everyone finds out about the ‘Burn Book’ and a riot starts
which ends up the headmaster talking to them all in the auditorium. They all
start to apologise to each other until it is Janis’s turn who then starts to tell everyone about
her and her friends plan to destroy Regina with Cady’s help.
Regina storms out and gets hit by a school bus, breaking her
spine. Denouement is when the Plastics have disbanded;
everyone gets along with each other but in their own
groups. There is no longer a group that everyone hates in
their year group. This is a typical linear narrative because it
follows these steps and it’s similar to other teen movies.
Iconographycan be aspects of the mise en scene which convey
representations of events, places, themes or characters. It isaspects that
come to your mind when you see the film;it is something that represents
something about the film.An example would be ‘Quantum of Solace’
directed by Marc Forster in 2008, in the film it shows an Aston Martin car
which represents British power and wealth. James Bond and other spies
wear smart suits to show their power and experience. This is stereotypical type of
costume for action/thriller film. Another film would be ‘Leon’ directed by
Luc Besson in 1994 which has strong iconography because
it shows taxis/world trade centre which is very iconic of
New York City.
Ideological message is something that the film shows that will happen in the end
and gives us a message about life. ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ directed by Nick Cassavetes
in 2009, this film is about a girl who died of leukaemia. Her sister was genetically
created so she could try and save her by donating blood, organs and bone marrow,
etc… However the story ends by the girl dying as there was nothing more they could
do. In final scene, the girl’s sister says, ‘Death is just death, nobody understands it’.
This is a message that says no matter what you try and do, death will happen and
you have to move on from your loss.

4. Genre and FemaleRepresentation
In James Bond films, women are represented as sexual objects, with no
real character development. James Bond always ends up in bed with the
woman. However in ‘Quantum of Solace’ directed by Marc Forster in
2008, they are trying to make female character stronger by showing that
she can fight, hold a gun and defend herself but still ends up being
rescued by James Bond so this shows us that despite attempts to define
female characters in a strong manner, women are not represented fully
and are still seen as objects of male desire. This is a convention of James
Bond and most action thriller films because women are always
seen as attractive and have a bit of power.In other genres such as crime thriller,
women are represented differently because there is often a femme fatale who is a
woman who is very rich and attractive and usually quite dangerous. This occurs in
the film ‘Pulp Fiction’ directed by Quentin Tarantino in 1994; with the character
Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman.
Genre
I like films in the romantic / comedy genre. When you watch this genre of films, from the
narrative you always know that they start off not liking each other but end up getting know
each other depending on what situation, going on dates, things always go wrong that it is
not right but at the end they always fall in love. This is part of the ideological message also
because it always has a happy ending and shows that opposites attract each other. Mostly in
these types of films the characters are always completely different to each other. The
setting shown in the mise en scene is mostly at high school, house parties or their house.The
iconography is shown by always having big houses on wide streets and the popular people
having fancy cars. However this is more typical of American romantic comedies. Some
examples that include what has been discussed above are ‘It’s a Boy Girl Thing’ directed by
Nick Hurran in 2006, ‘Life as We Know It’ directed by Greg Berlanti in 2010 and ‘A Cinderella
Story’ directed by Mark Rosman in 2004.

5. Main Part Two
LEON
The film ‘Leon’ directed by Luc Besson in 1994: Leon is dressed unconventionally,
he is foreign, tall and skinny wears a hat and has a greying scruffy beard and
sunglasses. He is totally unlike the typical action hero like James Bond who is
young, smart and good looking. Mathilda is a 12 year old girl, who is a
very strong character. She has been made to grow up very quickly
because of her family circumstances. Although Mathilda acts tough and
has to do adult activities, she is still very immature as she experiences a
‘childlike’ crush on Leon. It is very rare for an action film to have a strong female as
one of the main characters and it is also very unusual for the hero to have a
relationship with a young child.
In the exposition of the film the characters and settings are introduced.
The mise en scene shows New York City, and some characters are
introduced such as Leon, Stansfield, Tony and Mathilda. The narrative is about
Mathilda’s family who were murdered by corrupt drug enforcement agency
officials but she hated her family expect her 4 year old brother. She walks up to
Leon’s door and he rescues her. This is the inciting incident in
the film and grips the viewer. Next is the rising action, which
is the main part of the film, whereby Mathilda discovers Leon is a
hitman and wants revenge for her brother so she asked Leon to train
her to become an assassin and Leon agrees to help her. This then starts
to develop their friendship and Mathilda gets a crush on Leon and falls in love. Next
Stansfield captures Mathilda until Leon kills Stansfield’s men and rescues
Mathilda.The climax occurs when Stansfield discovers Leon’s location.
After a huge gun battle, Mathilda escapes. However, Leon then puts the
pin out of the grenade in Stansfield’s hand and says it is
‘from Mathilda’ and then the huge explosion killed Leon
and Stansfield instantly. The denouement of the film is
when Mathilda went to Tony’s place and Tony said he will keep it for her
money until she is old enough to keep Leon’swish. Mathilda went back to
school and buried Leon’s houseplant as she had told Leon
he should, to give it roots. This is an unusual narrative because it creates a
narrative enigma which is where you are not quite sure what is going on
and the audience wants to find out more. This shows that the director of
Leon is the work of an auteur director because this enigma doesn’t
normally appear so early on in an action film and therefore drags the
audience in.With this narrative he puts his creativity first before being
successful on a commercial scale because he believes the narrative is more important.
There are three themes which are revenge, love and friendship. Revenge is common to have
in action films and happens throughout in Leon. However, due to Luc Besson being an

6. auteur director, the film also covers love and friendship. Love/friendship arenot very often
in action films. The relationship between Leon and Mathilda grows stronger as the film goes
on. This is extremely unusual to have a relationship between an adult and a child unless
they are related; a teacher or a student but they are not any of those. They started to have a
relationship since Leon rescued Mathilda.
The opening scene is very similar to other action films because it
starts off in New York looking like quite rich and posh; we are
made to think it is another typical action film because the
iconography are in New York City, skyline, yellow taxis, a guy
entered in posh hotel. This is shown in the mise en scene.
However, as the film develops the setting changes and it’s no longer wealthy, rich and look
luxurious. It is very basic apartment block where the apartments are quite small, not very
modern, not enough furniture. This make the film have an individual style.
Main Part Three
QUENTIN TARANTINO
Quentin Tarantino has directed 11 films and can be classed as an auteur director. An auteur
director is the main creator of his work and although Tarantino has directed 11 films he has
also starred in 9 of them. This shows he wants to be involved in his own work and have an
influence on the audience. His films have lots of different themes including humour,
violence, insanity or violent psychosis. These themes are normally separate however
Tarantino mixes them together to create a film which is different to ‘normal’ films.
Tarantino is over the top because he exaggerates feeling and emotions which makes
the emotions of the characters stronger and therefore allows the target audience to
feel what the characters are feeling. For example in ‘Kill Bill Volume 1’ directed by
Quentin Tarantino in 2004, it shows the clip that ‘The Bride’ was
thinking about what happened at the wedding as soon she saw
Vernita - http://youtu.be/9gJXbwhggFY . This makes you
understand the characters thoughts and feelings. The dialogue
that Quentin Tarantino uses in his films is quite direct because he uses
lots of swearing and racist terminology. This is different to a
conventional film because in the ‘normal’ films you wouldn’t put those words because
people might think it’s wrong and might criticise them but Tarantino does use them because
it was filmed a long time ago and Tarantino wants it to be different and make it realistic. It
also positions the audience very uncomfortably because they get to like the characters and
empathise with them, but they are confronted with them being racist and / or violent.

7. Tarantino uses a narrative that is unconventional in the majority of his films. An example
one of Quentin Tarantino’s films when he is an auteur director would be ‘Pulp Fiction’ in
1994, the genre is crime thriller. The narrative is an elliptical narrative where things are left
out and you are not quite sure what is going on. It is also time disordered which is where the
scenes go back in time and forward in time and you are not sure what is happening until the
final scenes when you feel rewarded because it all comes together and makes sense. There
is also a narrative enigma where we want to find out what is going on because we don’t
understand, we are engaged and it creates a sense of mystery for the viewer. There are
different characters in different scenes and Tarantino develops them in a positive way so
that we begin to like them. He does this with all the characters in Pulp Fiction. This shows
his work as being an auteur directed film because normally we do
not get to know all the characters and we do not like the bad
characters. Also the director uses iconography, in the mise en scene,
to break conventions. He includes needles however Tarantino uses
much more drugs that we can see in conventional films which
therefore glamorises heroin. He also uses violence in his films and
represents the iconic 70s music in a few of his films such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and
the Kill Bill films. All of these techniques are used to make this film individual and to be
successful without having the commercial success of conventional films. This director
creates many films in this way such as ‘Django Unchained’ in 2012 and ‘Reservoir Dogs’ in
1992.